


Late and Soon

by skidmo



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skidmo/pseuds/skidmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nikola meant it when he said that the five of them were enough. Enough for everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Late and Soon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bessemerprocess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/gifts).



  
_The world is too much with us; late and soon,  
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;  
Little we see in Nature that is ours;  
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!  
_  
-William Wordsworth

 

“The five of us are enough,” he’d said one day when Worth had snuck into their lab, trying to worm his way into their group. It was an off-hand comment. Just a way to dismiss the very idea of inviting the little bastard to join them.

But when he played the conversation over again in his mind—as he did with so many conversations, picking through them, sifting out ideas, refining them, fine-tuning them until they were perfect in their imagined potential—he realized it was true. The five of them were enough. That was why they had found each other, why they worked so well together despite their differences.

After the Source, it seemed truer than ever. They were bound together by blood. Their abilities complemented each other, played off each other. Together—the Five working as one, performing as a unit, acting in unison—they were unstoppable. They would change the world.

It was that unity of purpose he was trying to preserve, whatever the others said of him. He could see them splitting into factions, drifting further apart, and he knew what was needed to keep them together, if only he could make them _listen_.

He’d gone to Griffin first. And Nigel had seemed to understand. Nikola supposed there was a freedom that came with invisibility that allowed him to accept these truths easier than the others, who were still so caught up in their ridiculous, Victorian morality.

Nigel accepted it easily when Nikola explained it, laid out his logic, explained how if they wanted to change the world, accomplish everything they were capable of, they had to be unified in all things.

Nigel shrugged, his face twisting into a smirk Nikola would always picture whenever Nigel spoke to him while invisible. “Makes sense to me, mate. Get your kit off.”

Nikola approached it scientifically, taking notes in his head, cataloging Nigel’s expressions and reactions, mentally tallying each moan and shudder.

Nigel, on the other hand, seemed to come at it like a game. He laughed at Nikola’s seriousness, smirked at his earnest questions, mocked his careful, thoughtful methods.

In the end, though, they were both satisfied, limbs tangled and sweaty, Nikola’s usually pristine hair falling in his eyes. Nigel laughed and pushed it back. “Well? Feeling unified?”

He didn’t laugh at all when Nikola, quite seriously, answered, “Yes.”

***

John was next. He knew it would be a long shot, but he thought John would be just a bit more accepting than the others.

He laughed in Nikola’s face, and Nikola tried to keep his considerable temper in check long enough to explain.

“But don’t you see? It is not about sex, Druitt. It is not even about attraction. God knows I could find a dozen more pleasing partners without even trying.”

“Then what, pray, is it about?” John asked, a bored drawl to the question.

“It is about…about…” He hesitated, for once not certain how to put his thoughts into words, how to explain the burning _need_ he felt to solidify the group, to bind them together in this way. Eventually he offered, “It is about intimacy.”

“I feel no need to become… _intimate_ with you.” He spat out the word as though it left a foul taste in his mouth.

It wasn’t like with Nigel. He and Griffin bickered and snarked, certainly, but there was a measure of friendship behind it. It came from a place of mutual understanding.

There was no such understanding with John. They were always at odds, always coming at each other from the wrong angles, it seemed. Nikola could not find a way around it, and if he were honest, he didn’t care to try.

“Not just with me, Druitt…John. With all of us. We can be so much _more_ than we are, but we must be united.” It hurt his pride a bit; this was too close to begging for his liking, but he truly believed this was necessary.

John stepped closer, using the few inches he had on Nikola to great advantage. “If you broach this subject with Helen, you will have me to answer to.”

Nikola could hold himself back no longer. “Helen can speak for herself.”

John lunged, but Nikola was too fast for him.

And that was the end of it.

***

He knew that Helen would be a tricky prospect, convincing her would be difficult. So he went to James instead.

“My dear boy,” James said, shaking his head in disbelief. “You must be joking. The very idea is preposterous.”

“How can you say such a thing?” Nikola asked, just as perplexed as James. “We are splitting apart, Watson. We argue and we bicker, and it is only a matter of time before we separate completely. I do not wish to see that happen.”

“Nor do I, but, Nikola, this plan of yours smacks of debauchery.”

Nikola sighed, weary of having to explain himself again and again. “That is not the point of it. Surely you can see how it would bring us closer.”

James frowned, hesitating. Nikola could practically see the wheels turning, that famous intellect working him over, testing his intentions. “Has it worked with the others?”

“With Griffin,” Nikola answered, feeling none of the shame he had expected at the admission. “Druitt has been more resistant.”

“Tell me, Nikola, how do you foresee this ending? With each of us pairing off whenever we require a measure of relief?”

Nikola bites his tongue to keep from snapping at James, reminding him that he knows all about measures of relief.

“I foresee us growing closer, becoming a perfectly cohesive unit. In all things.”

After a long moment’s silence, James nodded, accepting this. He held a hand out for Nikola, who took it with an amused smirk, puzzled by the gesture.

James is more traditional than Nigel was, more openly affectionate. He marveled over Nikola’s body as though it were something truly special. His hands moved over Nikola’s skin, tracing intimate details, making Nikola feel as if he were being mapped, memorized. He found himself echoing the movements, studying James’ body like an equation he’d only ever seen one side of. He was learning to make connections between the physical and personal sides of his companions, to equate the bodies with the minds he already knew so well.

In the end, James curled his arms around Nikola, and Nikola found himself laughing, surprised by the gesture. James didn’t seem to mind. He merely smiled and murmured into Nikola’s once again unruly hair, “You were right, dear boy.”

“When will you learn, James? I am always right.”

***

He never did get around to broaching the subject with Helen. It wasn’t Druitt’s threat that kept him from it. It was the fact that Helen already knew of his interest in her, though perhaps not the depth of it.

That and he suspected James had already told her of his plan and had been unable to convince her to participate.

James once suggested that he and Nigel and Nikola try all together, but he was in the middle of a relapse, off his senses on cocaine, and Nikola felt that would defeat the purpose. Nigel even tried to convince him, but he felt it would contaminate whatever it was that they had together.

It wasn’t the cohesion Nikola had envisioned, but it kept them together longer than they would have been without it; Nikola was certain of that.

***

Things seemed to fall apart all at once.

The loss of Druitt was easy enough to bear, for Nikola at least. Though he could see that James and Helen did not take it so well.

It was when Nigel left that Nikola began to feel them drifting apart.

He fell in love, foolish man, and gave up on the rest of them, leaving them to start a family, to get _married_ , of all things. Nikola could not understand it, nor could he see anything particularly compelling about the woman he chose.

James and Helen had already paired off, and Nikola found he didn’t mind losing her to Watson as much as he minded having lost her to Druitt. He felt as though they shared something, wondered if James touched her with the same reverence with which he had caressed Nikola.

It brought them closer, even as the unity he’d once imagined seemed to slip from his fingers.

It wasn’t until he and Helen were slinking across London, hiding from every major intelligence organization that he knew of, that he finally brought up the subject. It was too late for Nigel, but he had to make one last effort at keeping the last three of them in one group.

He waited until they were holed up in a tiny flat in SoHo, until she couldn’t get away, before suggesting it.

She reacted much as he’d anticipated, first with disbelief, then amusement, then mild horror when she realized he was serious.

“It’s worked for you and James,” he argued, leaving out the fact that it had worked for him and James as well.

“That’s different.”

“Why? Because you love him?”

“Yes.” She was always so blunt. It was one of the things he loved about her.

“I am not asking you to love me, Helen. I am only asking you to give me a chance to show you the difference this can make.”

He could see that she did not believe him, could see in her face as she attempted to work out what it was that he wanted.

Shaking his head, he moved to look out the tiny, grimy window. “Never mind. Let’s get moving, yes?”

It was so much easier to walk away after that.

But he would always wonder what would have been, and he would always believe that the five of them could indeed have been enough.


End file.
